The three lesser churchmen had been slain. Their bodies lay on the stones, their red robes soaked in blood from the volley of the wheellock dags.

Lady Katarina of Bavaria burst through the doors just as the roar of the volley began to fade.

As the keeper of the Bavarian silver, Katarina walked freely within the lord’s hall. She had heard the blast from her chambers and knew at once a dark deed was done.

The sight that met her eyes chilled her to the bone!

She looked upon the ruined bodies of the Pope’s men in sheer terror.

To slay an inquisitor was not merely murder; it was an act of madness that promised the curse of the Church and a holy war upon their lands!

Katarina’s gaze shifted from the ruin to the Konrad.

Konrad stood over the last living man, Inquisitor-General von Heusen.

Konrad showed no wild wrath, nor the fear of a man who had just doomed his house. He was merely looking at the wounds left by the lead shot.

"Konrad, the peace of the whole Swabian Circle is broken!" Katarina cried, "You have slain the Holy Father’s own envoys. The Emperor’s Diet will not pardon this. They will lay waste to our roads and burn our fields!"

"..." Konrad slowly turned his head to the Bavarian Duchess.

"...they did not, they came as thieves seeking to steal my forges and mills. I have merely purged a threat."

He looked down at Inquisitor-General von Heusen. The churchman was shaking with dread.

"The Duchess requires plain truth to ease her fears," Konrad told the inquisitor, "Speak of your dark pact with the exiled Friedrich... Tell her how the Bishop of Augsburg meant to steal our water-hammers and silver roads."

"I... I..." Von Heusen, knowing his life rested upon obeying the lord above him, cast aside his holy pride. He stammered out a full confession of their worldly plots.

The Inquisitor told how the Bishop’s lords were drowning in debt. The church courts had plotted with Friedrich not to root out heresy, but to forge a lawful excuse to seize the valley by force!

Their true goal was to tear down Konrad’s furnaces, steal the Fugger silver, and yoke the peasants once more to wring wealth for the Bishop’s purse.

"..." Katarina heard these truths.

The holy cause of the Church was but a cloak to hide a desperate grab for gold and lands.

Even knowing this, Katarina’s heart sought comfort. She needed to believe that Konrad knew the great peril of his deeds, that he felt some sorrow in slaying priests within his own hall.

She stepped toward him, seeking the kind words a true lord would offer a frightened friend.

"Even if their cause was but greed, Konrad, the deed is ruinous," Katarina pleaded. "Tell me you see the danger. Tell me this was a desperate need, a heavy sorrow you bear to save this house."

"I feel no sorrow... I saw a foe seeking to break our trade. I used the needed force to strike him down."

He let the words hang in the air.

"Your need for righteous causes is a weakness, Lady Katarina. Priests’ tales are but chains for the simple-minded."

Katarina stood still.

The truth brought a swift change in Katarina’s mind. She was the keeper of Bavaria’s coin, and she needed to guard her father’s silver. If the Bishop of Augsburg meant to sever the Swabian roads, the wealth of Bavaria would bleed dry!

Katarina turned away without another word. She needed no more answers.

She left the hall at once. She would tell only of the Bishop’s plot to steal the Swabian silver and cattle trades. She would ask him to send two thousand Bavarian footmen, armed with halberds and pikes, to guard the northern roads against the Bishop’s men.

Konrad watched her go, he then turned his eye back to the Inquisitor.

"If the Bishop dares to send his sell-swords across the von Frundsberg borders, they will not be met with holy debate."

He pointed toward the outer walls, where the new great guns were being set upon the ramparts. "You will tell the Bishop that my gunners are gathering stores of bursting shot," Konrad ordered. "Any men who cross my borders will be met with a crossing storm of cannon fire. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

I will slaughter his horsemen, cut off his grain, and bleed his bishopric dry."

He leaned closer, "I hold total rule and mastery over the twenty thousand souls within these lands. Your church holds no sway here."

Von Heusen could only nod quickly. He didn’t say a word.

The churchman scrambled to his feet, his red robes dragging through the blood of his brethren, and fled the hall.

...

The slaying of the three lesser churchmen was not kept a secret within the von Frundsberg keep.

Konrad knew that a strict rule over a failing realm required mastery of all tidings and tales. Thus, Lady Isolde’s whisperers were sent forth to spread false words.

The paid tongues did not say Lord Konrad had slain holy men. Instead, they spread a carefully woven tale to the common folk.

The tale told of foreign spies, cloaked in stolen red robes, who had crept into the valley to poison the herds and cut the Fugger silver roads.

The slaying was named a lawful deed to guard the meat and coin of the toiling men.

Yet, Dowager Baroness Mathilda knew the truth. She saw the ruinous doom of shedding the blood of the Pope’s own men.

She burst through the doors of Konrad’s room.

"You have doomed these lands," Mathilda said, "The tidings from Augsburg show the Chief Inquisitor lives. He will bear your threats to the Church courts. The Bishop will beg the Emperor’s Diet for a Papal Interdict. Every soul here shall be denied the holy rites. The peasants will rise up long before the Bavarian footmen reach our borders."

"Your fears are born of a frail trust in priests..." Konrad said. "A Papal Interdict is but the silencing of a foreign church. The peasants will not rise, for their obedience is no longer bound to the promise of Heaven. The Church steals coin; I give it."

Mathilda gripped the desk. "Men need the fear of God’s wrath to keep the peace, Konrad! If you cast down the rule of Rome, the common folk will fall into bloody ruin. You cannot rule twenty thousand souls merely by the fear of the great guns."

"I don’t mean to throw off the yoke of faith, Mother, I only mean to take it from the priests and use it myself."